The need to effectively and safely stop a fleeing vehicle without damage to non-offending vehicles or harm to people involved has long been a concern for law enforcement officials. Consequently, barricades employing spike barrier strips have been used to puncture a fleeing vehicle's tires. Spike barrier strips typically use multiple spikes deployed across a road in the path of a fleeing vehicle to puncture its tires. Examples of existing spike barrier strips are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,382,714 and 4,995,756.
Although prior-art barrier strips are reliable in effectively puncturing the tires of a fleeing vehicle to stop the vehicle, they retain major drawbacks. Namely, in order to stop the fleeing vehicle and yet avoid inadvertent damage to any non-offending vehicles that may be using the same path, the prior-art barrier strips must be deployed in the path of the vehicle either (1) when the area is tightly controlled or (2) only immediately prior to the fleeing vehicle passing. Otherwise, damage to any non-offending vehicles travelling the same path is almost always certain because the sharp, tire-puncture spikes remain exposed at all times during deployment of the barrier.
Since it is difficult to tightly control an area into which a vehicle will flee, it is often required that deployment of a barrier strip occur immediately prior to the passing of the fleeing vehicle to avoid damage to non-offending vehicles. If non-offending vehicles are using the same path, there may only be minimal time after a non-offending vehicle passes in which to deploy the barrier strip before the fleeing vehicle passes. Accordingly, the deploying personnel must remain dangerously near the precise location where the fleeing vehicle will pass and must have a barrier strip in hand and ready to be deployed on a moments notice. As such, it is not uncommon for the deployment personnel to risk being seriously injured by the fleeing vehicle as the barrier strip is deployed or, potentially, by any non-offending vehicles that may be near at the time the strip must be deployed. Moreover, the sharp spikes on existing barrier strips often injure the deployment personnel handling the barrier strip because the spikes remain flagrantly exposed during deployment of the strip.
Obviously, such dangerous and unpredictable situations are not desirable features that accompany the use of the prior-art barrier strips. Accordingly, objects of the present invention are to provide an improved barrier strip which simplifies the process of stopping a fleeing vehicle, maximizes the safety of deployment personnel, and minimizes the danger of accidental tire puncture to non-offending vehicles.